Almost any writer or content creator can benefit from using a minimal Markdown editor like Typora. It’s a simple app that you can configure in many different ways to suit the formatting you need for your document, whether you’re writing a book, building a website, crafting a business report or simply blogging or penning an essay for school.

Ready to streamline the way you use your Mac? The five essential Mac apps in the 2021 Mac Utility Bundle will give your productivity a real boost. And you can get them all for less than $20.

This week we “watch” our to-dos with Things, read the news really, really fast with NetNewsWire, make Keynote-style presentations with Markdown, and more.

Slideas is a new Mac app that turns Markdown text into fancy, stylish presentations. It’s like Keynote, only entirely driven by typed text. And like Keynote and PowerPoint, you can add videos, charts, images and more. How does it work?

You can now create more useful secure notes in 1Password for iOS, thanks to a new update that adds rich text support.

The latest release also introduces a sticker pack for Messages and a whole host of bug fixes.

There are dozens of ways to write on iOS. Apple’s own Notes app offers a simple writing platform, while Pages allows for elaborate documents – complete with pictures. While both are good for certain tasks, more serious writers typically want something a little different. iA Writer offers more while doing less, making it the perfect text editor app.

While there are dozens of note-taking and writing apps available on iOS, few strike the balance of rich features and simple design the way Drafts does. Whether you’re looking for a quick way to digitally jot down a passing thought, take notes in a meeting, or store an address or phone number, the Drafts app makes it easy to quickly capture text before taking action.

Apple’s Notes app has gotten great in iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra. It’s fast, it’s easy to clip content to new and existing notes, search is instant, and you can collect pretty much anything into a note. You can even share individual notes, mark up PDFs, draw on pictures, and scan paper documents.

It really is a powerhouse. But one thing Notes doesn’t have is a sensible way to get your notes out of the app. Notes export is limited to PDF. If you decide Notes isn’t for you, you’re stuck. Fortunately, some third-party apps will export your Notes into universally compatible plain text files. Even better, one is free, and the other costs just 99 cents.

Realmac Software has been schooling developers on how to make great apps since 2002. So when they brought Typed to OS X back in December, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Two months on, I’m convinced it’s the best Markdown editor you can get on the Mac, so I spoke with Realmac founder Dan Counsell to find out how he and his team built it.

Write, the distraction-free note-taking tool that’s been a great success on iOS, is ready to make writing easier on your Mac.

Whether you’re a student, a blogger, a novelist, or simply too forgetful to remember what you need to pack your holiday, Write’s incredibly simple design and clutter-free user interface can make writing a more enjoyable experience. But don’t let its minimal beauty fool you — Write is packed with handy features.